


Hear It In The Silence

by pretchatta



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Based on a Taylor Swift Song, F/M, Feelings Realization, Flirting, Love Confessions, Missions, Post-Star Wars: A New Dawn, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Pre-Star Wars: Rebels, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:42:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29429004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pretchatta/pseuds/pretchatta
Summary: You can hear it in the silence,You can feel it on the way home,You can see it with the lights out,You are in love.True love.Over the course of their missions for Fulcrum, Hera realises just how deep her feelings for Kanan go.
Relationships: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	Hear It In The Silence

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the song You Are In Love by Taylor Swift ([YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgL0t6nu-Mo) || [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/1yGbNOtRIgdIiGHOEBaZWf?highlight=spotify:track:2KrOAg6FftbjgSKdd2a4rS))
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day!

They’re standing in an otherwise empty storage container, waiting for the stormtroopers to move past them to the next hangar. It’s dark, but the box isn’t airtight, and a shaft of light from one of the holes in the top falls over his face. They’re both completely silent, barely even breathing, and there’s a moment when the footsteps stop just outside of the closed, unlocked doors. A moment of suspense, of anticipation, of dread, and he looks at her with an openness she knows he doesn’t show to anyone else.

Then the doors are slammed open, because _someone_ tipped the troopers off to potential trespassers, and the moment is gone. They’re fighting their way out; of the container, of the hangar, of the space port, grappling with troopers and guards and running from blaster fire until they’re racing up the ramp of the Ghost. Kanan slams the controls to close it behind them as Hera scales the ladder to the cockpit, both aware that they’re not truly safe until they’re off the ground. 

The mission isn’t a total loss; they have the information they were after and neither of them are seriously injured, though that says more to the competence level of Imperial soldiers than any particular skill on their part. They’ll just have to be careful in this sector in the future, since now the Empire knows it’s a target for rebel activity.

In the cockpit, the transparisteel viewport fills with the swirling blue vortex of hyperspace and Hera finally lets herself relax. Kanan joins her, his presence in the nose gun no longer necessary. At one point in the fighting his hair had come loose from its tie, but he doesn’t seem to notice it fanning around his shoulders. 

He struggles to remove his coat, a strand of hair having tangled on one of the buttons on the collar. Hera laughs and reaches out to help him, her nimble fingers quickly freeing the fastening and pushing the coat over his shoulders.

“If I’d known the way to get you to undress me was plain incompetence, I would’ve tried this a long time ago,” he jokes. 

She shoots him a look from under an arched eyebrow. “I think you’ll find you’ve been doing that all along.” 

She strokes a stray lock of hair back from his face and adds, in a lighter tone, “I guess you’ve finally worn me down.” 

She’s not sure what surprised him more, her words or her touch, but for a moment he’s caught off guard. She catches a glimpse of an awed, longing expression before he quickly covers it.

He clears his throat and hastily ducks into the crew quarters to put the coat away. Now alone, she replays those looks in her head: the one he gave her in the storage container, and the one he gave her on the Ghost. It isn’t much, but she has growing suspicions. She tries not to think about how she feels about that; she’s had that conversation with herself several times over the year Kanan has been living on her ship. She distracts herself by placing the datacube they recovered into the terminal in her cabin to start decrypting. 

Back in the cockpit, they make small talk as they prepare to land for a supply run. She lets him pilot; it may be her ship, but he has a point about the possibility of him needing to take over if she is incapacitated. She tells him that he needs to practise, and that she needs to know he will treat her ship right, but the fact that she’s letting him in the pilot’s seat at all speaks volumes about how much she trusts him. 

It’s only after landing that they realised they miscalculated their arrival. It’s the middle of the night, local time, and none of the vendors are open yet except an all-hours café. It’s quiet, and they have nothing else to do for several hours, so he offers to buy her a cup of caf. 

Inside, they take their seats at a table, not quite the only customers there. They talk about space lag, and the planets they’ve been to, and the different systems of measuring time across the galaxy. After a while Hera notices a pair of bright spots on the wall that move when she does; she realises it’s the light reflecting off the goggles on her head. She wears the pilot’s cap out of habit nowadays rather than any actual need for it, and she often forgets it’s there.

Kanan notices her distraction and peers around at the wall behind him.

“Is this another place with a rot-wing infestation?” 

“Hm? Oh, no, I’m just playing with reflections.”

He cranes his neck until he spots the dancing lights and chuckles. After casting around for the light source, he gives it a speculative look and then says, “Hey -- look up.”

He scoots his chair around until he’s next to her, and she obligingly points her head towards the ceiling above them. She sees him angling his body out of the corner of her eye, and then there’s a third patch of light next to the two she’s creating. Without moving her head, she looks at what he’s doing, and realises he’s using his shoulder armour. The dark green paint is chipped around the edge, revealing the shiny silver metal underneath.

She laughs at the ridiculousness of what they’re doing, two grown adults playing with reflections like children. They chase each other's little spots of brightness over the ceiling and he laughs too, his unarmoured shoulder brushing hers. It's only a small brush, but she feels something like a jolt of electricity from the contact. From the way he jerks back, she guesses he felt it too. 

They stare at each other for a moment, the lights forgotten. The space between them seems charged with a strange energy; neither of them dares to breathe as the moment stretches. He's giving her that look again, and she can't help wondering what it would be like to kiss him. It would be so easy to lean in and find out. 

The moment is broken by someone entering the cafe, the door swooshing open with a soft ding. They both release the breath neither had realised they'd been holding, and Kanan's eyes flick to the newcomer while Hera turns back to her cup of caf. The energy is immediately diffused, and they resume their wait. Neither speaks, but it is an easy silence, comfortable and familiar. 

Dawn comes to this part of the planet, and with it, the opening of the market stalls. They shop for their supplies, exchanging their usual banter as they decide what fresh food they’ll eat over the next week, and which scented soap will grace the Ghost’s refresher for the next month.

Despite leaving an early morning behind them, it’s the end of their day cycle, so Hera finds an empty patch of space to drift through. They retire to their cabins, buoyed by the full fuel tank and restocked galley that resulted from their successful supply run. 

Alone in her bunk, Hera lies awake thinking back to certain moments of the day. Once again, she replays those looks, and the touches, the soft words, the silence in between. She starts it thinking about Kanan, but by the end, her thoughts have drifted to herself. What it all means, to her. How she feels about it.

She finally confronts the thought that’s been waiting in the back of her head, tired of pushing it down.

“You’re in love with him,” she whispers to herself in the dark.

The fact doesn’t scare her, as she thinks it should; it is simply true. 

Their next day cycle is a day off. The decrypted data was sent to Fulcrum, who is still yet to respond, so they can spend some time catching up on housekeeping and take it slow. On days like these Kanan likes to make breakfast, and she certainly has no objections, so after she puts some laundry on she joins him in the galley. 

He does most of the cooking for their meals, but she can handle simple things, like toasting the space waffles. It gives her plenty of time to watch him work, to see how comfortable he is in her ship. It’s his ship too now, she realises, watching him reach for utensils and seasonings without even looking. 

It’s his home.

She’s watching him, so she doesn’t notice that the toaster has jammed until the acrid scent of smoke reaches her nostrils. It triggers an immediate response in her; heartbeat sky-rocketing, adrenaline filling her veins, she spins around.

She doesn’t even realise she’s shouting as panic takes over. She grabs desperately at the waffles, but the heat is too much for her fingers. She casts around for something to help, and the first thing she thinks of is her own loose t-shirt. She pulls the stretchy material over her hands to protect her fingers as she hurries to fish out the charred remains of the waffles, until Kanan steps in.

“Woah, hey, stop!” He frantically swats at her hands, but is too late -- the synthetic fabric is smoking. She hadn’t turned the toaster off before reaching in. 

He quickly leans over her to yank the power cable out before turning back to her. 

“It’s okay, they’re just waffles! Are you hurt?”

“Oh… I’m sorry.” The panic fades as soon as it had arrived, the adrenaline taking a little longer to drain from her system, leaving her exhausted and ashamed. There are several charred holes in her sleeve. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Let me see your hands.” His voice is soft, and she obligingly offers him her hands for a gentle inspection. He tugs her over to the sink and runs cold water over her fingers.

“I said I’m fine,” she repeats.

He doesn’t stop what he’s doing. “Hera, I’ve burned myself while cooking enough times to know that no matter how fine you feel now, you probably won’t in about ten minutes, and by then it’ll be too late to fix.”

She huffed out a sigh. “The food’s getting cold.”

“It’ll be fine,” he soothed. “Do you want to change before we eat?”

She opened her mouth to say yes, but hesitated, remembering the still-going laundry. “...I don’t have any spare shirts.”

“I’ve got one in my cabin; wear that.” He releases her hands and dries them gently on a clean towel before nudging her out of the galley. Echoes of the shock are still numbing her senses a little as she makes her way through the ship; everything seems quieter, fuzzier, and a little more distant. 

In Kanan’s room she feels a little calmer. She finds his last shirt in a drawer and takes her ruined one off, discarding it into his waste collector. She pulls his over her head, stretching the neck a little to get it over her lekku, and breathes in its scent. It mostly smells like laundry, but it’s been in his drawer long enough to have an extra dimension to it, one that’s uniquely Kanan.

Back in the common area, he’s waiting at the table with two plates of food and two cups of caf. She slides in next to him, feeling relieved at the return to normalcy, and they begin to eat.

The food is excellent, as his cooking always is, even without the space waffles. They eat in silence, but even though what just happened still hangs over them it’s a comfortable one. She can almost feel the unwavering support radiating out from him, not prying, but ready to talk about whatever is bothering her.

She waits until they finish before speaking.

“When I was a little girl, a Y-wing fighter crashed into my home,” she begins quietly. “One moment everything was normal, but then there was an explosion. It was so loud, and everything was shaking… Part of the building collapsed, and started a fire. All I remember is being confused and scared, I was terrified. At first we didn’t even know what had happened. 

“Then we were trying to work out if anyone was hurt, going through who would have been in the house and working out who was unaccounted for. We tried so hard to find them, because if we couldn’t... It was two days before I accepted that I wasn’t going to find my mother. For the longest time, I felt like it was my fault, like if I’d just looked harder--”

She chokes on a sob and takes a deep breath to steady herself.

“I didn’t realise it still affected me. I stopped having nightmares about it years ago. But I guess it’s still there.”

She hadn’t told him, until now, of the ghosts that haunted her. She’d held them close, thinking it made her strong, but as she lets them all go, she feels… Free. Like a weight has been lifted, or at least part of it.

She had avoided meeting his gaze, but when he speaks, she can’t help but look up. 

“I understand.” His voice is soft, as is his expression, and his eyes tell her of the depths to which his understanding goes.

“I know how it feels, to lose someone and think that you should have done more to stop it,” he continues. “But in reality, you know there’s nothing that could have stopped it. It’s okay.”

She struggles to find the words to convey how much his words mean to her. She settles for a smile, and he smiles back. Then he’s leaning over to clear the plates away, carrying them into the galley to wash up. She stands to follow him, gathering the cups, but he’d only dumped the plates in the sink before coming back for them himself. They reach the doorway at the same time and do the awkward dance of ‘you first’, which ends with both of them inside. She sets the cups down on the counter as he rolls up his sleeves to start washing.

“Kanan…” she starts. _Thank you_ , she wants to say, but the words aren’t enough. She looks up to meet his eyes, and something in his answering gaze seems to say that he knows exactly what she’s trying to convey. She can feel everything now, all of her emotions that are tied to him are rising, unleashed by her own actions in unlocking the final gate between them. 

She takes a half step towards him and falters, but somewhere between the look and the movement it says enough; he meets her in the middle, his hands cupping her elbows, his eyes never leaving hers. She leans into him, rising onto her toes, lowering her gaze to fall on his mouth. He bends his head slightly and her eyes slide shut as she presses a kiss to his lips.

Nothing exists except Kanan. No sound, no light, just the press of his lips against hers, the warmth of his body, the smell of his skin. It feels like home.

An indeterminate amount of time later -- it could have been anywhere from a few seconds to several rotations -- they break apart. Nothing has changed, but everything feels more… right, somehow. She looks at him and sees the thought echoed in his eyes. He wraps his arms around her and she lets him pull her close, resting her head on his shoulder.

A distant beeping tells her of an incoming call on a secure frequency. He drops a kiss to the top of her head as she reluctantly leaves his arms to go answer it.

It’s Fulcrum, with a new mission from the data they obtained. The lazy morning vanishes as Hera briefs Kanan and goes to update the Ghost’s course. He finishes cleaning the galley and starts his preparations as she works out the best place to land near their target. She’s still wearing his shirt.

It’s a straightforward job: destroy a shipment of weapon prototypes before they can be loaded onto their transport. Chaos, confusion and property damage -- nothing they can’t handle with ease. They make it in and out no problem, but only the former happens without notice. The Imperials chase them out of the secure port and into the nearby town, sending troopers and walkers after them.

They stumble into an alley, the shadows swallowing them and hiding them from the searchlights. Breathless and giddy from their narrow escape, she grabs him by the lapel and pushes him against the wall to kiss him. He responds enthusiastically enough to lift her off her feet, making her giggle against his mouth, but then they’re interrupted by the roar of engines and the pounding of boots.

He sets her down immediately and they’re running, darting through the alleys, trying to lose their pursuers. The stormtroopers can’t get their speeder bikes around the corners, but it doesn’t take them long to switch to a foot pursuit. 

“Keep going,” she pants at him, “I’ll meet you back at the Ghost.”

He twists his head to look back at her over his shoulder. “Where are you going?”

“I’ll take a longer route back, if we split up we’ve got a better chance of losing them.”

She starts to peel away down an intersecting road, but he grabs her arm. “I’m not leaving you.”

They come to a halt, both trying to go in different directions.

“Kanan-” she starts, an edge of anxiety in her voice, but he interrupts.

“They’re not going to catch up to us if we keep running.”

“I am giving you an _order_!” she snaps.

He jabs a finger at her. “Why don’t _you_ take the direct route-”

He’s cut off by the sound of approaching boots.

“Go, I’ll be right behind you!” She tries to shove him away.

“ _No!_ ” He grabs her hand and pulls her forward with such force she stumbles, but his strong grip keeps her upright, dragging her after him and forcing them to stay together. She’s furious that he’s ignoring her direct order but has no breath to tell him as they race through the dark town.

In the end, he’s right, and they make it back to the Ghost before the stormtroopers can catch up to them, taking off with the shields absorbing blaster fire before vanishing into the darkness of space. It means nothing; the operation may be over, but their conversation is not.

She rounds on him as soon as the autopilot engages. 

“What the _hell_ was that-”

“You don’t know what you were asking of me-”

“When we’re in the field, I am your _captain_ -”

“And I will obey any order you give me but _not that one_.”

She glares at him. “Don’t you think I can take care of myself?”

“It’s not that. I know you’re strong, and capable, and can handle yourself in a fight. I just can’t -- not after -” He struggles to finish the sentence.

“After what?” she presses.

“I won’t leave you behind to die.”

She suddenly realises what he’s talking about, and everything becomes clear. Now it’s her turn to ease some of his burdens.

“I would never ask you to do that, Kanan, but I do need you to trust me.”

“I know. I do. It’s just -- hard.”

“I’m here, Kanan.” She steps forward to wrap him in her arms, pulling him close. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and squeezes her back, taking comfort from her physical presence. They both have painful histories, but she’s glad that neither of them have to face them alone any more.

“It’s been a long day,” she murmurs into his hair. “We should get some rest.”

He makes a noise of assent against her neck that she feels rumbling in his chest, but doesn’t loosen his grip on her.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to sleep alone.”

They know each other well enough to understand that she only means sleep. He sighs before releasing her, and lets her pull him towards the crew quarters.

The captain’s bunk may be larger than the standard ones in the crew cabins, but it’s still not quite big enough for two. In the middle of the night, she wakes as she rolls over and into him, not used to the limited space.

He’s lying on his side, facing her, and in the darkness her sharp twi’lek eyes can pick out the details of his expression. He’s awake, watching her with a strange look on his face.

“What is it?” she whispers.

There’s a pause as he continues to look at her, but then he answers.

“You’re my best friend.”

There’s a simple honesty to his statement that makes her heart clench and her eyes sting.

She realises what that look means now: he is in love.

She can’t stop herself from leaning in to kiss him, pushing him back against the pillows and trying to convey just how deeply she returns his feelings.

"I love you, Hera," he whispers, her name a prayer between his lips.

"I love you," she breathes back between kisses.

The Ghost hovers in space, a tiny bubble of _them_ in the vastness of the galaxy, surrounded on all sides by the white pinpricks of countless stars. Hera and Kanan may only be two people, but they both know what is truly important, and they will fight their hardest for it until the very end.


End file.
